Part of me died when I saw this cruel killing

[Stray_Dog]

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Sometimes I wonder what fucking planet some of you live on.
To attempt to justify this hideous act by “blaming the US” is ludicrous. So much for compassion for your fellow man/woman/human being.[/quote]

By the way, could you quote your OP and highlight the parts that show compassion for the murdered woman? Just so we can learn how to do that?

I don’t think you can, because all I read was you telling us how there are graphic details of her death and that this is why we invaded and we either win or lose. Maybe I missed something, though.

[fred_smith]

Now, now, Fred. We all know that when one side resorts to insults, they have lost the argument. You don’t see me sitting here calling you a fat poof, for instance. Care to try again?

No, I would not care to try again. I will leave your posts to stand for themselves, likewise for mine. Anytime that you have proof however to back up any of the assertions that you have made, feel free to post, otherwise…

To wit.

1. Do you have proof of any kind that the US, any of its allies or any Western oil companies control any Iraqi oil?

2. Do you have any proof that Saddam was not responsible for millions of deaths?

3. Do you have any proof that Iraq’s three ethnic groups lived “harmoniously” prior to the US invasion?

4. Do you have any proof that the US is directly responsible or is orchestrating the deaths of Iraqi civilians?

Feel free to jump in at any time… I will be waiting… Bit out of your depth though I should think… this political, diplomatic, economic, socio-cultural, geostrategic stuff, surely?

[Stray_Dog]

You go first with proof to the contrary. Thanks.

[fred_smith]

I don’t think

Yes, we get that.

you can, because all I read was you telling us how there are graphic details of her death

Yes, that seemed to be the point.

and that this is why we invaded

er, no I did not get that part. I think this was your interpretation of his remarks.

and we either win or lose.

???

Maybe I missed something, though.

Not maybe…

[fred_smith]

You go first with proof to the contrary. Thanks.

That is not how it works. The accuser has to supply the proof. Sort of like in a criminal trial, you know for things like burglary… arson… rape… murder…

[Richardm]

This looks like an interesting read. It was reviewed in the Taipei Times yesterday.

OVERTHROW: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq
By Stephen Kinzer
384 pages
Times Books/Henry Holt & Company

The US is its own worst enemy

[Stray_Dog]

Exactly, and you are accusing me of beiong wrong, so go ahead.

(I’m not playing your favourite game of seeing who has the most unfulfilling life and therefore more time to demonstrate typing skills. )

And from your previous post, I see that other FS ‘tactic’, whereby you state obvious errors in the hope that other posters will get so tied up in exposing them, they forget the original argument.

Try again, Fred. :bravo:

[fred_smith]

By Stephen Kinzer’s count, the US has toppled foreign governments 14 times in the 110 years between the 1893 coup in Hawaii and the occupation of Iraq, making regime change by force as American as apple pie. But Kinzer says the results are always damaging to the countries involved, and to American security as well.

Does that include Nazi Germany, Milosevic’s Serbia? Mussolini’s Italy? Tojo’s Japan? Just curious. Always damaging? Really?

Kinzer’s main explanation for these recurrent misadventures is greed. The prime villains are United Fruit, ITT, Aramco, Halliburton and other corporations and plutocrats operating through like-minded officials. He proceeds from the classic theory first advanced by the British economist J.A. Hobson, and most prom-inently in Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, that overproduction causes a scramble for new markets and “a policy of forcing foreign nations to buy American products.” This may be convincing for the early cases, but Kinzer underestimates the relative force of geopolitical concerns during the Cold War, when, he claims, economic motives played just as strong a role as ever.

so we are reading someone who still believes that Marxism is relevant to world affairs? Oh dear… AND would anyone like to explain how Halliburton engineered Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and why this was not relevant? and that Saddam was no threat to anyone? despite the records to the contrary by every major Western intelligence agency? how do we account for their views? Or did these nations all secretly hope to get Halliburtonesque deals?

Actually Kinzer cannot quite make up his mind.

Understatement of the week I shoudl think…

At the beginning he contends that things like spreading democracy, Christianizing heathen nations, “establishing military bases around the world and bringing foreign governments under American control were never ends in themselves” but were “ways for the United States to assure itself access to the markets, resources and investment potential of distant lands.”

How then does this account for the bases that remained in Europe during the Cold War? Japan? Korea? Taiwan? ONLY ECONOMIC reasons are to blame? Really?

But later he says, “Americans overthrew governments only when economic interests coincided with ideological ones,”

Oh okay…

and details cases in which intervention came not just from greed but from humanitarian hubris as well. At the outset he discounts moralism, but later he credits “the power of the noble idea of American exceptionalism.”

So in other words the reasons why the US invades nations is multifaceted and subject to a wide variety of factors… another understatement…

In the next three years, Washington undertook covert action programs that funneled money to anti-Allende newspapers, parties and private groups. The definitive investigation under Senator Frank Church, however, found no evidence that the US instigated or aided the military coup.

Glad to see that this vindicates my noting that the CIA was not responsible for the overthrow of Allende.

The horrors of the Pinochet regime, the movie Missing, the record of previous covert actions and Nixon’s happiness with Allende’s ouster generated the folklore that Washington had done to Allende just what it did to Mossadegh in Iran and Arbenz in Guatemala. But no such evidence has yet come to light, even in the 17,000 pages of documents declassified in the Clinton administration. Among those, as the Latin America specialist Mark Falcoff has pointed out, were secret recordings of Nixon and Henry Kissinger supporting their claim that the US did not have a hand in the coup.

So Pinochet’s murder of 3,000 is somehow to compare with Saddam’s 3 milliion?

[fred_smith]

Exactly, and you are accusing me of beiong wrong, so go ahead.

Exactly what?

(I’m not playing your favourite game of seeing who has the most unfulfilling life and therefore more time to demonstrate typing skills. )

Hmmm. Well, what exactly is your “game” then?

And from your previous post, I see that other FS ‘tactic’, whereby you state obvious errors in the hope that other posters will get so tied up in exposing them, they forget the original argument.

What are the obvious errors? What is your original argument?

Now, no offense Stray Dog. Perhaps, you are having a bad Monday. I have no idea what caused you to “stray” into the IP forum, nor do I have any more interest in trying to treat your arguments seriously. You are on your own now…

Try again, Fred.

[Stray_Dog]

Now you’re just flirting with me.

[TainanCowboy]

[quote=“Stray Dog”]Now you’re just flirting with me. [/quote]Stray Dog -
This thread is not about you, it was posted to honor Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqui journalist who was brutually murdered while doing her job.

[Stray_Dog]

[quote=“TainanCowboy”][quote=“Stray Dog”]Now you’re just flirting with me. [/quote]Stray Dog -
This thread is not about you, it was posted to honor Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqui journalist who was brutually murdered while doing her job.[/quote]

If your intention was to honour a murdered journalist, you did a pretty pee poor job of it.

@Tainan Cowboy

This story contains very graphics descriptions of the murder of this woman correspondent. It may be very upsetting for some. It is not for the fragile.

@Tainan Cowboy

This is one of the reasons this war is fought. There is no political advantage in actions such as this. This is simply terror designed to instill fear and discord. We either win or we lose.

Where do you honour her?

You don’t; you dishonour her by belittling her cruel death to nothing more than a fact to twist into support of overthrowing non-US regimes.

Show me where you honour her, TC, and I’ll show you where you are digging for ‘reasons’ after the act - how ironic.

[Lord_Lucan]

@fred smith

[quote]Correction: This is a result of the war we started.

Tell that to the 500,000 to 3 million people killed by Saddam. The women who were subjected to his sons’ rape rooms, to those that were beaten on a regular basis for being suspected of opposition, to the entire families that were murdered because of the actions of one even distant relative… The high end to the figure also includes those who were killed in Saddam’s various wars including the 8 year war against Iran. [/quote]

And tell them, too, why we supported Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran, propping up his regime, and increasing his ability to brutalise his people.

@fred smith

So please, let’s get a bit more knowledge about the subject before making such ridiculous statements. Just because YOU did not know about it does not mean that it was not happening.

I would have thought knowing all this but doing nothing until it became politically expedient to do so would be the greater crime. (And “doing nothing” is an extremely generous assessment of our engagement with Iraq from 1979 to 1989.)

[jdsmith]

This is bullshit gents. This poor woman was brutally murdered for doing her job. She shouldn’t have been. I hope you read the article, power drills and partial depacipitation to get the maximum suffering.

Playing the blame game is not only unproductive, but stupid and far beneath all of you. Who created Iraq after WWI? The British occupied it and the League of Nations carved it up. Blame them. No, blame the Germans for WWI.

History is full of fault and it goes back forever because history is a cause/effect kind of thing. You all know as well as I do that everyone’s hand is in everyone else’s pocket.

This woman was murdered and she was on the right side of things. The people who killed her are thugs, wannabee gangsters and probably leftover Republican Guards from Saddy’s torturous reign, (and lots of countries buy weapons from other countries and do not use them to enslave and murder their own people). If not, they are just thugs, jumping on the chaotic bandwagon, hoping for the worst and trying to help it arrive, so they can get rich and powerful.

This thread sickens me with its partisan political bullshit at the expense of an innocent woman. :raspberry:

[games]

[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Stray Dog -
This thread is not about you, it was posted to honor Atwar Bahjat, an Iraqui journalist who was brutually murdered while doing her job.[/quote]

You sure?

Last time I checked the OP just looked like trying to squeeze her death for some cheap political spin.

That would be you TC, wouldn’t it?

[Jaboney]

@jdsmith

This thread sickens me with its partisan political bullshit at the expense of an innocent woman. :raspberry:

Yes. Killed to make a point. Story of her death kicked around to make other points. It’s sometimes an incredible relief to escape politics.

[Stray_Dog]

[quote=“jdsmith”]This is bullshit gents. This poor woman was brutally murdered for doing her job. She shouldn’t have been. I hope you read the article, power drills and partial depacipitation to get the maximum suffering.

Playing the blame game is not only unproductive, but stupid and far beneath all of you. Who created Iraq after WWI? The British occupied it and the League of Nations carved it up. Blame them. No, blame the Germans for WWI.

History is full of fault and it goes back forever because history is a cause/effect kind of thing. You all know as well as I do that everyone’s hand is in everyone else’s pocket.

This woman was murdered and she was on the right side of things. The people who killed her are thugs, wannabee gangsters and probably leftover Republican Guards from Saddy’s torturous reign, (and lots of countries buy weapons from other countries and do not use them to enslave and murder their own people). If not, they are just thugs, jumping on the chaotic bandwagon, hoping for the worst and trying to help it arrive, so they can get rich and powerful.

This thread sickens me with its partisan political bullshit at the expense of an innocent woman. :raspberry:[/quote]

You can accuse any poster here of your last remark. :s

[cctang]

Have you guys not yet noticed there’s quite a bit of doubt who killed this woman? There’s no conclusive proof at all she was a victim of the anti-American insurgents, and there are suggestions she was the victim of the Shiite security forces trained/supplied by the US military.

Before we get started playing the (meaningless as mentioned before) blame game, it seems rather important to get that fact right… no?

As far as watching these beheading videos… I made the mistake of watching one earlier in the process. One of those very disturbing video/graphic sites (I think it was ogrish.com) collects all of these videos shot by insurgents. One of the videos was for some American contractor in his mid-40s who was beheaded in a similar way. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely chilling. The screams are really something that sticks with you. I felt sick for days afterwards.

The darkness of the human soul is really disturbing, at times. But this darkness is also general, and afflicts those of all nationalities/beliefs/parties. Trying to connect this darkness to any specific political ideology is a pointless exercise.

[Lord_Lucan]

Just because there’s a video of this woman being killed we’re not allowed to discuss it? What sort of logic is that?

Anyone remember the Hyde Park bombing? The photo of the guardsman with his entire lower body blown off? I do. He survived for quite a while. No shortage of political discussion after that one. The legitimate actions of freedom fighters throwing off the yolk of imperialist aggression?

And the Japanese rampaging through Asia? When they raped torutured and dehumanized people was it any more or less worthy of discussion than the death of this woman?

And any of a number of horrors visited upon some poor bunch of innocent people down the years?

And this will all happen again and again and again.

[jdsmith]

[quote]Just because there’s a video of this woman being killed we’re not allowed to discuss it? What sort of logic is that?
[/quote]

Where did I say that? I said it disgusts me that the sliver of compassion shown for this woman before everyone jumped into their political mindsets was appalling, myself included. Is that ok? Can I say that?

[quote]
You can accuse any poster here of your last remark.[/quote]
And your point is?

And I have.

If you guys want to play this game, go right ahead. For me, I’ll say the guys who cut off this woman’s friggin head are wrong, and I don’t want to hear stories about their childhood or how they were forced into becoming monsters by international sanctions or nationalistic endorphins. Fuck them. I can say that yes, I hope they die, and die soon. The world doesn’t need them.